Spy in the huddle: Documentary film-makers disguised their cameras inside animatronic penguins to capture these incredible, intimate scenes of emperor penguins on the ice sheets of Antarctica

Spy cameras disguised as penguins were used to capture these incredible pictures of the flightless birds' private lives.
Documentary film-makers hid their cameras inside 50 animatronic replicas of the marine birds to get closer to them than has ever been possible before.
The were captured for a forthcoming documentary charting a year in the lives of three penguin communities, revealing the qualities that make them among nature's most devoted parents.

Chick's-eye view: The penguin-cams were able to lay their own camera-containing eggs to capture these incredible shots of infant penguins as their parents struggle to keep them alive in the frigid polar winter

Penguins - Spy In The Huddle follows emperor penguins in Antarctica, rockhopper penguins on the Falkland Islands and Humboldt penguins in the Atacama Desert of Peru as they bring up their young.
The team behind the documentary, due for broadcast on the BBC, cunningly hid their cameras inside life-size, robot replicas of each of the species they looked at.
Each was even able to lay its own 'egg-cam' to film the action from a chick's-eye view.

Nature's most devoted parents: Two emperors gaze down lovingly at their chick

'Key to the success of the spycam missions are the animatronic cameras cleverly disguised as lifesize penguins which can silently infiltrate the colonies to record the penguins’ often emotional, and sometimes amusing, behaviour,' the said documentary's makers in a statement.
'They’re on hand to chart the tough challenges these penguins face from the moment they emerge from the sea to raising their chicks and finally returning to the water.'

Little ones are growing up... The film-makers braved temperatures as low as -30C to chronicle the lives of emperor penguins over nearly a year on the Antarctic ice

Oh, isn't he cuite! Two emperor penguins peer at each other's youngsters - just like human parents